Hurricane Disinfo: How Lies About Helene Were Defeated, And What It Means For Election Day
The truth fought back and won after a few days. On November 5, every minute will count.
It started small: a few posts from the far reaches of Conspiracy Twitter, pushing fringe theories about the government manufacturing storms.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on the evening of September 26, 2024, and during the two following days, approximately 96% of posts from swing states mentioning the hurricane were focused on topics typical of a hurricane recovery period - details of the storm damage, fundraising appeals, and messages of comfort to those who were impacted.
About 2% of posts from swing states on September 27 and 28 mentioning the hurricane, though, were making extraordinary claims:
This, too, is typical. People make outlandish claims online every day, and 2% of the discourse is, if anything, a share so small that it’s barely significant - a statistical blip.
And others were pushing back against the claims - around the same percentage of posts from swing states on those days - 2% - were mocking or fact-checking those whackadoodle theories:
The next day , September 29, there was a bit more disinfo, but not substantially more - the share went from 2% to around 3.5%, and the share of posts fighting disinfo went up to around 3%:
The next day, everything changed. It was the day Donald Trump paid a visit to one of the affected communities in Georgia:
From that day forward, the disinformation machine went into overdrive, and the narrative was clear: the government had done nothing for the victims, probably because they were in “red” areas. And what’s more, the government had plenty of money for Ukraine and “illegals”:
This narrative was so powerful that it overwhelmed the truth, metastasizing to such an extent that it represented more than 50% of all posts from swing states mentioning Hurricane Helene by October 4:
Finally, on October 4, voices in government and media launched a concerted effort to push back:
And after two days, it worked. Enough concerned Americans helped the truth-tellers spread their message. By October 6, disinformation began to lose the narrative war:
What may have been a critical factor in the pushback was the fact that it came from politicians in both parties, and from the local and national media. Regular Americans were alerted about the problem from a variety of trusted voices, and many were inoculated from false claims simply by being aware that some of what they were hearing was not true.
On Election Day, the disinformation about voter fraud is likely to be even more overwhelming, as bad faith actors from Elon Musk and Donald Trump on down amplify any claim that will cast doubt on the voting process.
And it’s unclear whether media institutions, not to mention Republican officeholders, will stand up for the truth as forcefully as they did after the hurricane. Democrats and progressives will have to be ready to match the power of the right’s bullshit without the help of other institutions. It can be done. But it will be a fight, and every minute will count - the war over who controls the narrative could determine the fate of the election itself. If Americans lose trust in the voting process itself due to the river of sludge that will surely be unleashed, even a clear Harris victory could be imperiled, as the Trump team fights to convince courts and state legislatures to declare him the winner.
But Americans may already be inoculating themselves against Trump’s claims. Two-thirds believe Trump will refuse to accept the results if he loses. The hurricane disinformation, and the eventual pushback, may have further damaged Trump’s credibility with voters, and reminded people that he is willing to spread harmful lies for personal advantage.
One thing seems certain: if Trump loses at the polls, he will try to overpower reality with false claims. If that happens, the last, greatest battle of the 2024 election will be bigger than Trump versus Harris or Democrats versus Republicans - it will be the lie versus the truth.
[Note: Share Of Voice is offering Election Day social monitoring for progressive political clients, focused on tracking voter fraud claims and local voter suppression incidents in realtime. Stay ahead of the threats to our democracy as they happen - contact joe@shareofvoiceintel.com for more details.]